ROYALSTON – A last-minute addition has been made to the warrant for Royalston’s Annual Town Meeting seeking $700,000 through a Proposition 2 ½ debt exclusion.

The new article, authored by the town’s Building Committee, would pay for improvements to the former Raymond School, which would allow several municipal offices to be relocated from Whitney Hall to the former school building constructed in 1939.

“We simply have to get our employees out of Whitney Hall,” said Building Committee Chair Jim Barclay. “When Whitney Hall was a school, even way back then, the basement was wet and the students were walking on two-by-fours laid on the floor. (The basement) was never meant to be inhabited – that’s a basement just to be underneath an old post-and-beam building.”

A lack of accessibility at Whitney Hall is another issue that has been raised in recent years, as town officials have wrestled with the need to find appropriate office space for employees and residents alike. Barclay pointed out that several options have been looked at.

“We brought in an architect and looked at Whitney Hall, and upgrading that building was going to be over $4 million,” he said. “That was all pre-COVID, so add 30% to that. We then looked at the Raymond School – same architect, same kind of plan – and that was $3 million.”

Several years ago, the town pursued a U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development Assistance loan to fund renovation of the Raymond School. This required voter approval, so an article was placed on the warrant of a Special Town Meeting held in February 2022.

“The day before the Town Meeting,” said Barclay, “we found out…that they had no such funding. They (USDA) could do that sort of thing on several-hundred-thousand-dollar projects, not $3 million projects. So, we had to pull the article.

“We’ve just looked everywhere, we’ve done everything we could think to do to get this funded.”

To reduce the cost of making the Raymond School suitable for office space, he explained, the committee decided to limit renovations to only a portion of the building.

“The first floor is low-grade,” said Barclay. “So, if you’re going to use that as a municipal building of any kind – that means ADA compliant, that means some sort of elevator system to get between both floors. That’s extremely expensive. We said, ‘Okay, that’s just not going to work.’”

As a result, the committee determined the best course of action would be to abandon plans for an elevator, as well as using the basement for office space.

“The current project calls for us to renovate the main floor only,” Barclay said. “That will give us six rooms. It will give us a relatively large meeting room. The administrative assistant, who is currently in Town Hall, will be in that building. So, Selectboard meetings would be held in that meeting room, which is 250 square feet.”

Other offices provided for in the new plan include the town clerk, treasurer/collector, Board of Health, Board of Assessors, and building inspector.

The project also provides for a break room and construction of a ramp at the southern end of the building to bring the structure into compliance with ADA regulations.

“So, that gives us office space for all of the people who are currently in Whitney Hall,” said Barclay.

At Tuesday night’s Selectboard meeting, Barclay said it is altogether likely that he will be able to ask voters to reduce the amount of the proposed debt exclusion. While the article on the official warrant will contain a figure of $700,000, Barclay said that figure will be reduced, but he was unable say by how much. He added that renovation work would be done by students from the Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School. The town’s Department of Public Works is also expected to assist with the project.

Royalston’s Annual Town Meeting will take place at 10 a..m., Saturday, June 8, at Town Hall.

Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.